Four police officers were injured on Sept. 4 in Novi Pazar as police prevented around 1,000 members of the Islamic Community in Serbia from reaching the site on which a kindergarten is to be built - land which the community claims belongs to them.

Members of the Islamic Community in Serbia, which is led by Mufti Muamer Zukorlic, hurled several stones at the police after which Islamic Community in Serbia representatives appealed for those gathered to refrain from causing a larger incident.

A BETA reporter saw four injured police officers who were treated by an ambulance crew on site. None of the demonstrators complained of injuries.

Zukorlic claims that the city wants to build a kindergarten on land belonging to his community which was seized by the communist government after the Second World War, but the head of the Novi Pazar City Administration, Sulejman Nicevic, earlier said that the municipality had bought the disputed land from the Islamic Community in Serbia in 1982.

After the protest, Zukorlic, in a statement to BETA, called on Belgrade to begin dialogue in order to maintain peace and stability in Sandzak where the situation was "exceptionally tense."

He said that the problem represented the feeling of citizens that discrimination and disregard of the rights of Bosniaks in Sandzak were increasing and added that the repressive measures used in Sandzak over the last few days were to punish Bosniaks for their decision to support the Bosniak cultural community in the national council elections and withdraw their confidence in ministers (Rasim) Ljajic and (Sulejman) Ugljanin.